November 8
November 6
The U.S. media’s willingness to mindlessly apply the term “terrorist” in exactly the subjective, self-serving way the U.S. Government dictates — starkly contrasted with their refusal to use the far more objective term ”torture” on the ground that the term is in dispute (i.e., disputed by the U.S. Government torturers) — illustrates the establishment media’s principal function: to serve American political power and justify whatever our government does. That’s a major reason — perhaps the primary one — why the U.S. Government has been able to get away with everything it’s done over the last decade. Those unseen victims of torture, rendition, indefinite detention and other government crimes are all just “terrorists,” so who cares? In reporting on these convictions, CNN immediately and helpfully proclaims Nasr to be a “suspected terrorist” in a way that guts any meaningful definition of that term and — in many minds — justifies whatever was done to him, no matter how illegal. It’s worth asking this question: which sounds more like actual “terrorism”: (a) kidnapping people literally off the street and shipping them thousands of miles away to be tortured with no legal process, or (b) what Nasr is “suspected” of having done?
— Glenn Greenwald (via azspot)
November 3
+ Harvard Students to Learn About Black People By Watching The Wire
Harvard, the nation’s insufferable institution of higher learnin’ attended by the nation’s most insufferable kids from its most insufferable families, will offer a course on HBO’s The Wire, the best TV show ever made, so as to better educate their pampered student body about life in the ghetto. Says William J. Wilson, who will teach the class: “I do not hesitate to say that (The Wire) has done more to enhance our understanding of the challenges of urban life and the problems of urban inequality, more than any other media event or scholarly publication.”
“The announcement came at a panel discussion at the school featuring several of the show’s stars.”
WAIT, WHAT?!
According to this mailing list snippet, the panel (featuring the actors who played Kima, Bubble and Omar) was held last Thursday @ 7:30 in Science Center D.
?!?? O_O ?!?!
At 7:30 that Thursday I was literally in the next room Science Center C trying not to hit myself in the face to keep awake. (3 straight hours of orgo lecture will microwave your soul.) All the while the sounds of cheers, laughter and applause kept streaming in from next door. We didn’t know what we were jealous of, but we were definitely jealous.
Now I know. Sad to have missed this panel because I’m right in the thick of the 4th season, I’m caught up and emotionally invested in the characters’ lives, and all the wonders of this show are still unfolding before me… :(
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